22 



slightly projecting, particularly the lower ones. The rays 

 appear simple at first sight, but are not so, each having 

 two closely adhering branches. 



The skin is perfectly smooth, and appears to have been 

 mucous when recent. Its colour, when dried, is yellowish- 

 brown, and there are three pale spots on each side of the 

 back, above the lateral line : one under the sixteenth and 

 seventeenth rays, the second under the twenty-seventh and 

 twenty-eighth rays, and the third and smallest on the base 

 of the thirty-fourth dorsal ray. The dorsal fin is clouded, 

 and some minute speckling can be traced on the other 

 fins. There are about thirty-four or thirty-five vertebrae, 

 as nearly as they can be counted through the integuments. 



DIMENSIONS. 



Lens'tli from upper lip to end of cauflal fin 8 75 inches. 



„ „ base of ditto 700 „ 



„ „ anus 3-70 „ 



Height of body at eleventh dorsal ray 300 „ 



„ second dorsal ray 2-7.5 „ 



Length of pectorals 300 „ 



Hab. South Australia. 



ScoRP^NA MiLiTARis. RichardsoH. 



Ch. Spec. Sc. spinis capitis fere Scorpaenae porci ce/bufo- 

 nis ; carinis intra-orbitalihus lavibus, apicibus puiigen- 

 t ibus ; operculo summo, temporibus, genisque squam osis ; 

 orhHis superne forte tridentatis, cirrho unico parvo ; 

 cirrhis qiioque tiasalibus ; colore carmesino ; pinna 

 dorsi spinosd rivtilatd cum macula nigra obloiigd ad 

 marginem pone medium. 



Radii:— Br. 7; D. 12ll0; A.31.5; C. I24; P. 17; V. 1|5. 



Scnrpana cruenta, Solander, MSS. ? Rich. Annals Nat. Hist, for May, 

 1842, p. 217. Scorptena mililaris, Rich. Zool. Trans., iii. p. 90. Scor- 

 peena ergastulormn, Idem, Annals of Nat. Hist., May, 1842, p. 217. 

 Soldier tish of the colonists of Tasmania. 



Plate XIV., figs. 1, 2, natural size. 



In Solander's MSS., preserved in the Banksian library, 

 there is an account of the colours of a Scorp<etia cruenta, 

 taken ofi' Cape Kidnappers, New Zealand, on Cook's first 

 voyage. This is not accompanied by a figure, or any de- 

 scription of form. In June, 1839, I read an account of a 

 collection of fish made at Port Van Diemen's Land, before 

 the Zoological Society, in which a. Scorpceua niilitaris was 

 described from specimens which had lost their markings, 

 and had been otherwise injured by deterioration of the 

 spirit in which they \vere immersed. From this cause, the 

 black mark on the dorsal was effaced, and I did not recog- 

 nize it as coiTesponding with Solander's description of 

 cruenta. In a paper on Australian fish, published in the 

 Annals of Natural History, in 1842 and 1843, I described 

 a drawing made by a convict at Port Arthur, of a Scor- 

 pcBiia, which I named provisionally ergastulurum, placing 

 it in juxtaposition with Solander's cruenta ; but being 

 unable, from defects in the drawing, to identify it with 

 that or any other species that had been described. A 

 more perfect specimen in the present collection is repre- 

 sented in Plate XIV., and appears to justify the reference 

 of the synonymes above collected, to one species. There 



was no trace left in the specimen of the blood-red mark 

 on the soft dorsal, mentioned by Solander, but it may, 

 nevertheless, have existed in the recent fish, or may be a 

 mark assumed in the spawning season. The following is 

 Solander's account of the colours of the living fish : — 



" Corpus saturate sed obscure rubrum, nebulis sub/as- 

 ciatis paucis pallide lulesceniibus pictuin, subtus dilute 

 sangnineuM. Caput superni; et latere p urpura scent i- 

 rubiciindum , subtus dilute sm/i/'i/in'/n//, nch/i/is albis. Iris 

 rubro-argentea. Pupilhi iiiijnt. I'iinnc i/i/rsules pars 

 prima obscure rubra, rirnlis paucis, suhpcllucidis, postice 

 nebula nigra, oblonga ; pars posterior antici', prope basin 

 macula intense sanguined notata, alias ruhicuuda macu- 

 lis nigricantibus adspersa. Pinna ventralis sa)iguiuea, 

 mavulis paucis uiijris. Pinna caudalis rotundata, rubra, 

 n/acu/is ii/gr/s in quatuor fasciis per radios disposids or- 

 nata : Meinbraiiti connectens immaculata^'' (Solander, 

 Pisces Australia;, MSS., jJ. 5). 



The foim of the fish is fully described in the Zoological 

 Transactions, as above quoted. 



Length of specimen, six inches. 



Hab. Coasts of Van Diemen's Land, and of New Zea- 

 land. 



SCORP.ENA BVNOENSis. Richardson. 



Ch. Spec. Sc. capite breri alio cum carporc cirrhis plu- 

 rimis parris ornato ; j/in/ni pcdiinili (jul lis lacleis seri- 

 atim Jasciatd ; pinnis aliis, corparv, el capite nebulis 

 albis variis. 



Radii:— Br. 7; D. I2|10; A. 3|5 ; C. I24 ; P. 17; \.\\b. 



Plate XIV., figs. 3, 4, 5, natural size. 



This species was discovered by Benjamin Bynoe, Esq., 

 while serving as surgeon of the Beagle, on the north-west 

 coast of Australia, and seems to diff'er from all the Scor- 

 p<en(B that have been hitherto figured. 



The scales on the head are confined to the upper part of 

 the gill-cover and temples, the cheeks above the preorbitar 

 ridge being smooth and scaleless. There is, perhaps, a 

 single row of very minute scales close to the ridge be- 

 neath, but the rest of the cheek is perfectly smooth. The 

 intra-orbitar ridges are little marked, and are not terminated 

 by spinous points ; the middle supra-orbitar tooth, though 

 pretty large, is depressed, and inclined inwards. The cirrhi 

 are very numerous, but none of them are large. A 

 bushy one, and many smaller filaments, rise from the orbit, 

 a similar one from the anterior nostril, and many which are 

 more or less fringed or lobed from almost all the prominent 

 corners of the head. One of the most conspicuous is 

 attached to the posterior corner of the preorbitar. The 

 lateral line, and the body throughout, are fringed by nu- 

 merous simple filaments. The colour in spirits is brown, 

 deepening into dark umber on the cheek, the top of the 

 head, spots on the gill-cover, and a large patch under the 

 second dorsal. The rest of the body is of a lighter brown, 

 relieved by white marks, which in some places are opaque 

 milk-white, such as the rows on the pectoral, the larger 

 spots on the anal, the axilla of the pectoral, and along the 

 belly. The filaments also on the head and body are mostly 

 opaque white. The distribution of the markings elsewhere 



